Kirklees Council's cabinet approves 'once in a generation' investments for district's towns including Batley, Cleckheaton and Heckmondwike

In January, it was announced that the Batley Blueprint would be receiving a £12m cash injection from the Government’s Levelling Up Fund (LUF). Two months later, £5.6m was allocated to Marsden for the restoration of its most prominent mill building.

However, the announcement was bittersweet with two of the council’s proposals rejected by the Government – the regeneration of Huddersfield’s Northumberland Street Market and the Penistone Line Rail Upgrade.

Originally, the Marsden Mills bid was also rejected until the Government’s Spring Budget was announced in March.

A total of £21m will be invested in the two successful bids. This is made up of cash from the LUF, the council’s contribution and investment from private sector partners.

Cabinet members also approved further endorsement of plans for Cleckheaton, Heckmondwike and Holmfirth, all of which have seen public engagement carried out in the last year.

Cabinet agreed that the priority projects identified through this consultation can now be taken forward and developed further.

Kirklees Council now aims to see all these blueprints’ masterplans adopted by autumn 2023 – the final town to adopt being Heckmondwike, public consultation for which was completed last week.

These blueprints have an overall funding allocation of £10m through the council’s "Local Centres” investment, aimed at strengthening key towns and villages across Kirklees, which was approved by cabinet in 2021.

An overview of each of the plans is as follows.

Batley: Regeneration of Commercial Street; One-way system for Market Place and Cambridge Street; New events space in front of the town hall; Improved link between Tesco and the town centre; Refurbishment of former JBM Bargains.

Marsden Mills: Refurbishment of New Mill; Commercial units, offices and residential space created; New courtyard and landscaping.

Cleckheaton: Improved connections with Spen Valley Greenway; Extension of Spen Bottoms Park to meet the town; Refurbishment of market; Savoy Square to become “beautiful outdoor space”; New centre for creative arts.

Holmfirth: Demolition of the market hall and new events space in its place; New parking spaces, electric vehicle charging points and better-located disabled parking bays; Improved public realm, bin storage and seating at Hollowgate; Views of the River Holme to become more open.

Heckmondwike: Plans are unavailable since consultation only ended last week.

Coun Graham Turner, cabinet member for regeneration, told the meeting: “As we know, this administration is ambitious for Kirklees. Not only for our major economic centres but also for our smaller town centres.

“We absolutely recognise the value that these town centres bring to Kirklees. Not only are they creating jobs and wealth but providing a different offer than the major town centres.

“We are currently working on four town centre projects and, as you would expect, some are more advanced than others.

"It is quite a challenge to work on so many projects at once for what is a very small team of officers but they are committed to delivering these in as timely a manner as possible given the financial constraints.”

Coun Shabir Pandor, Leader of the Council, said: “It [the cabinet report] shows that our ambitions and visions regarding all our centres is still there and I’ve just noticed that Coun Lawson (Lib Dem, Cleckheaton) is not here but I would like to assure him that Cleckheaton town centre – we also have a masterplan for that within our overall investment strategy.

“Work is continuing to progress there and in Holmfirth and the two Levelling Up bids that Coun Turner mentioned – Batley and Marsden – they’re a start but we also had another two bids that we submitted that were excellent bids.

"They were robust, they had all the evidence there, they had all the outcomes but lo and behold, the Government in their wisdom turned them down.

“I would not criticise the Government to have a sudden last-minute list that they pulled out of their back pocket because I would not be that cynical but we all know that the Levelling Up bids and the bidding process cost councils millions if not billions.

"What we want to do is make sure that we actually have a process where it’s based on need, it’s allocated on fair funding formula to stop that beauty contest and stop that contest where need is put on the back burner and politics plays a major part.

“Having said that, I’m really pleased we’re making progress and thanks very much Coun Turner and officers for bringing the schemes forward.

"But there is still a lot of work to do and we’ll carry on making sure we lobby Government very hard to make sure we get the resource that we need.”